House price index shows 3.3 per cent increase annually in average prices in Scotland

Published: 17 January 2017

The average price of a property in Scotland in November 2016 was £143,033.

The latest publication of the UK House Price Index (UK HPI) shows that the average price of a property in Scotland in November 2016 was £143,033 – an increase of 3.3 per cent on the previous year and an increase of 1.5 per cent when compared to the previous month. This compares to a UK average of £217,928, which was an increase of 6.7 per cent over the year and an increase of 1.1 per cent when compared to the previous month.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in September 2016 was 9,352 – an increase of 8.5 per cent on the previous year and up 10.4 per cent on last month. This compares with annual decreases in sales volumes of 22.0 per cent in England, 10.4 per cent in Wales and 10.7 per cent in Northern Ireland.

Registers of Scotland director of commercial services Kenny Crawford said: “The increase of 8.5 per cent is the first year-on-year increase in sales volumes in Scotland since March 2016, when volumes of sales increased by 45.4 per cent when compared with the previous year.

"Changes in Land and Buildings Transaction Tax are likely to have contributed to the significant increase in March and to the subsequent lower volumes in the following months. Volumes in September 2016 are also 18.6 per cent higher than in September 2014 and 26.7 per cent higher than in September 2013.”

The top five local authorities in terms of sales volumes were City of Edinburgh (1,126 sales), Glasgow City (1,104 sales), Fife (634 sales), South Lanarkshire (564 sales) and North Lanarkshire (504 sales).

The biggest price increase over the last year was in East Renfrewshire where the average price increased by 16.6 per cent to £225,312. The biggest decreases were again in the City of Aberdeen, where prices fell by 7.8 per cent to £171,530, and also in Inverclyde where prices fell by 7.8 per cent to £95,551.

Across Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price when compared with the previous year, with semi-detached properties showing the biggest increase of 4.2 per cent to £149,735.

The average price for a property purchased by a former owner occupier was £171,018 – an increase of 3.3 per cent on the previous year. The average price for property purchased by a first time buyer was £115,946 – an increase of 3.2 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale was £131,987 – an increase of 3.3 per cent on the previous year – while the average price for property purchased with a mortgage was £148,137 – also an increase of 3.3 per cent on the previous year.

The statistics have been produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for official statistics. The UK House Price Index is calculated by the Office for National Statistics and Land & Property Services Northern Ireland. Find out about the methodology used.

The new UK HPI has been published initially as an experimental official statistic to allow for users to acclimatise to the format of the new HPI, to evaluate user reaction to the new data, evolve the publication of data further to meet user requirements and to further develop the data sources used in the production. Whilst the methodology for the new UK HPI has been finalised, further work is taking place to secure additional property attributes data (such as from Scottish Assessors) that will supplement and provide additional assurance to the production process going forward.

It is expected that we will seek to take the necessary steps to remove the experimental status at the end of 2016, once the above points have been implemented and then progress with the assessment of the new UK HPI as a National Statistic.

Please note that the Northern Ireland Residential Property Price Index, used as a component source in the production of the new UK HPI remains an official statistic (i.e. this is not classified as experimental).

Registers of Scotland (RoS) is the government department responsible for compiling and maintaining registers relating to property and other legal documents in Scotland. RoS records and safeguards the rights of the individual while providing open access to information on the registers.

Since 1 April 2015, RoS has supported Revenue Scotland in the enforcement and collection of land and buildings transaction tax.

Note that all average prices reported from the UK HPI are geometric means, which will typically be closer to the median than the arithmetic mean. Also note that average price estimates for the most recent months are provisional figures and are likely to change when more recent data is incorporated into the index. Revision policies can be accessed here.↵

Due to a period of 2 to 8 weeks between completion and registration of sales, volume figures based on the month of date of entry are presented up to September because October and November figures may change when more recent sales applications data is received.↵

Local authority areas where sales volumes represent less than 1 per cent of the all Scotland sales volume are excluded from the figures used for highlighting purposes due to the volatility of the market in these areas. While East Renfrewshire exceeded the 1 per cent, there were only 146 sales in this Local Authority area. The increase in average price could therefore have been influenced by a number of sales at the higher end of the market.↵